Interference
by born30
Summary: Sequel to The New Rules; An installment of Tiva family ficage wherein Tony and Ziva learn that there are rules to interfering in each other's lives. Mildly angsty, mostly fluffy.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **_NCIS_ is not mine. The show and the original characters belong to Don Bellisario, Gary Glasberg, and CBS. The new characters, however, do belong to me. This was written strictly for fun, not for profit.  
**A/N: **As it said in the summary, this is a continuation of the universe created in _The New Rules_. I don't think you absolutely have to read that story first, but it might make this one more cohesive if you do. I'll leave it up to you. :-)) There are two parts, and I'll post the conclusion in a few days. Enjoy and thanks for reading!**  
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**1/2**

Hit a moving target at 15 yards? No sweat. Name every Pacino film starting with _The Godfather_? Bring it on. Wrangle his daughter's unruly ringlets into a somewhat presentable ponytail? Well, that required an expertise Tony DiNozzo did not possess.

And Hannah was losing patience. "Daddy, you're doing it wrong."

Standing behind her, Tony continued his labored efforts with her natural curls. "I'm trying, sweetie. Hold still."

For whatever reason, the babysitter had dressed her charge in the customary ballet-pink leotard for her weekly class at Tumble Stars Gymnastics, yet failed to tie up her hair, which left the task to him.

"Do it the same as Ashlyn," she ordered, bouncing up and down on her bare toes and making his job that much more of a challenge.

Really, he was lucky the preschooler's tolerance had lasted the 90 seconds that it had, so now he had two options: perform a miracle with her hair or make her laugh. The choice was easy.

"How do you know I'm _not_ doing it that way? You can't even see what I'm doing, unless—" Tony gasped dramatically. "You don't have eyes in the back of your head, do you?"

A playful rummaging through her hair drew peals of giggles from Hannah as she reached up and felt around on the back of her own head.

"There's nothing there," she reported.

"No eyes? Are you sure? Maybe that's just Mama." Reflexively, Tony glanced over both shoulders, half expecting his wife to be standing behind him. Years of working with the omniscient Leroy Jethro Gibbs had instilled in him the deep-seeded conviction that his foolishness never went unnoticed.

Never mind that Ziva DiNozzo probably wasn't in the same zip code right now. According to the operation briefs he received as the NCIS liaison to the Department of Defense, her special projects team was hot on the trial of the illusive, Israeli-born bio-terrorist known only as Ze'ev, and the case was just heating up.

Hannah took advantage of his moment of inattention to totter away. A chase through the waiting area of the gymnastics center ensued. Prior to the accident that left his right hip frozen, keeping up with her hadn't been a problem. Now Tony hobbled with his cane after the young sprite but to no avail. Only with the promise of "fry-fries" after class did she grant him a second chance at being her hair stylist.

"You will be amazed, Miss Hannah," he promised while pulling as many loose strands through the elastic band as he could manage. "Just…you…wait. Ah-ha, finished!"

His triumphant declaration went ignored by Hannah. She touched the tassel of a ponytail on the side of her head, and without a glance back at him, left to join a gaggle of little girls at the other end of the waiting area.

"I'll just be over here," he called to her. "If you need me."

"What exactly happened to her hair?"

Tony startled at the question, or rather, at her voice and its sudden close and surprising proximity to his ear. He had been right to anticipate sneakiness. It was a rule, after all.

He shrugged, feigning ignorance. "I-I don't know. Maybe Ashlyn's hand slipped…is it really that bad?"

Ziva sidled up beside him, still in her work clothes, hair slicked out of the way in a neat French braid down her back. Amusement danced on the curve of her lips. "It is alright, Tony. I can tell you tried."

"That obvious, huh?" He took the hit, mostly because he was already attempting to figure out how she was there when she had never before made it to one of Hannah's gymnastics classes. "Speaking of trying…"

"Yes." The special agent was breathless, as if she had run from wherever she had been to the gymnastics center in Arlington. "I did not know if I would make it on time, and then we got back early, so I came directly from the airfield."

The agent that laid dormant in him longed to know about her case: was it over or did the trail run dry? By now, he knew better than to ask; she never shared the details of ongoing operations with him.

Ziva was still rambling. "…so, now I owe my team one, but it is worth it to be here."

Her enthusiasm to be with him and their daughter was genuine—and for Tony, infectious. Side effects included a warmth in his chest and a smile that reached all the way up to his hazel eyes.

"Well, I'm glad you did," he intoned.

Because Ziva wasn't one for PDA, he kept his insatiable desire to kiss her to a light sweep of his lips across her forehead. From the soft smile she returned, the gesture was clearly appreciated.

"Mama, mama, mama," Hannah shouted while running full-speed into her mother's side. "Where'd you come from?"

One hand tipped up her daughter's chin and the other brushed loose strands of hair out of her eyes. "I came to watch you do gymnastics," Ziva told her. "How does that sound, hm?"

"Okay. I'm playing with those girls." She pointed behind her at a gathering of fellow 3-year-olds. "We're friends."

"That is wonderful, sweetheart. Now let me see what your father did to your hair…"

Before she could begin redoing Tony's lopsided attempt, Hannah bounded away, this time at the behest of the instructor, who already had the other little gymnasts lined up and imitating a train, complete with a chorus of small voices shouting out "choo-choo, choo-choo" as they chugged out of the station and onto the floor of the main gym. As the last to hop aboard, Hannah was the caboose by default.

Ziva was about to follow them onto the mats, but Tony lifted his cane into the air and caught her in the stomach, effectively bringing her up short.

"Excuse me?" She motioned to his curious methods.

"Tsk-tsk," he scolded, tapping his finger on a sign hanging on the nearest wall. "Per the gym's regulations, no parents, guardians, or nannies allowed on the gym floor."

"You have never been out there?"

"Nope. The instructors don't like when you interfere with the classes."

"She might hurt herself," she retorted.

"Or she might not." Tony gestured out to the floor where the instructor was using her fingers as a comb to rake Hannah's hair into a proper ponytail. "See, it worked out. Come on, we sit up here."

With a hand on the small of her back, he guided her toward the entrance to the loft space. The winding flight of wooden stairs that led to the parents' area gave him the same pause they did every week. Although he could climb them with assistance from his cane, it wasn't the highlight of his visit.

Without hesitation, Ziva raised his left arm, ducked underneath, and pulled it over her shoulders, making to bear the endeavor along with him.

"Oh, that's…sweet, but it's fine." Tony forced a chuckle while reclaiming his arm and casting a glance around for prying eyes. "I got this. You go on ahead, Ziva."

The dark-haired Israeli crossed her arms. "Why do you insist on being as stubborn as a donkey?"

"It's stubborn as a _mule_." One step…

She kept pace with him. "Are donkeys not stubborn as well? And bulls, for that matter?"

Two steps… "That's not the point. It's just how the saying goes." Three…

"If it is going to be a saying, it should at least be accurate, yes?"

Tony paused on the landing that connected the sets of stairs and faced her, releasing a weighted breath. "Have I told you how happy I am to have you here?"

Despite living in the United States for over a decade, his wife still confused basic idioms, but she never mistook how words were said. He knew she'd heard both the hint of frustration and the sincerity in his statement. Her gentle expression, bordering on but not embracing the sympathy he disliked with a fury, confirmed it.

Her nod was firm. "You just did."

"Okay, then." Tony flashed a grateful smile before placing his cane on the next step, using it as leverage to haul himself up one stair at a time.

/-/-/-/-/

The industrial-style loft, complete with tiered bleachers, was occupied by a smattering of adults, all of whom greeted or nodded in Tony's direction during the pair's walk through the rectangular area that overlooked the sprawl of the entire gym.

"You are quite popular here," Ziva observed.

"What can I say?" They chose seats halfway down the aisle, and Tony unbuttoned the top button on his suit jacket as he lowered down to the metal bleacher. He stretched his right leg in front of him. "I'm a likable guy. Lovable, some might say."

She laughed heartily. "More like—"

"Tony, there you are!"

Husband and wife swiveled around in tandem to find a woman in a red velour track suit waving and smiling at them from two rows up. So thrilled to have Ziva there with him, he forgot about Kylin, a fellow parent with whom he talked every week to pass the time while their girls took class.

Ziva regarded him with a tilt of her head. "Another friend of yours?"

Exhaling a single, shallow laugh, Tony demurred. "I wouldn't say she's a friend…"

"I saw Hannah and wondered where you were," the honey-blonde continued. "It's not the same up here when you're not sitting next to me."

With a private look, eyebrows slightly raised and lips pressed tight, Ziva expressed a clearer statement than any words she could have strung together in front of present company. Tony swallowed hard and commenced the introductions.

Kylin's eyes alighted when she heard Ziva's name. "Oh, so you're that invisible wife of his."

"Invisible?" Ziva repeated, looking to Tony for clarification.

"All the times I've talked about you, but you could never be here…" He shrugged. "She thought I was making you up."

Tony saw the indecision in how to reply to such a statement knit a crease between her eyebrows. She never reacted well to the reminders—that is, anything that reminded her of all that she missed out on at home while meeting the travel and time demands of her job. Luckily, the other mom was monopolizing the conversation, sparing her from the necessity of providing a response.

"I can't say enough about your husband," Kylin raved. "He's so great with Hannah. All the kids, really. And he gives the best movie recommendations! I just loved _Jerry Maguire_. I'd never seen it, can you believe that?"

Ziva nodded absentmindedly. "That is…not surprising. However, I would like to concentrate on my daughter right now."

"Of course you do, and I'll leave you to it." Kylin gave Tony a look before turning to talk to the mom on the bleacher next to her.

"She was just being nice," he whispered to his wife.

Ziva rolled her eyes. "Apparently, you have been _nice_ enough to her for the both of us. Now shh! I do not want to miss anything."

Peering over the top of the banister, she never lost sight of the group to which Hannah belonged, no matter the simplicity or even monotony of their actions, including lining up as a train again at the end of warm-up to march from the main floor to the balance beams. Tony found himself watching Ziva more than the routine progression of the class, increasingly fascinated with her rapt fascination.

"You're really into this." He didn't mean for the observation to come out sounding so much like a revelation.

"And you take it for granted," she countered. "Look, there—"

Following the point of her finger, Tony located his daughter amidst the other girls in the class, for she was the smallest and—he'd learned from previous conversations with parents in the loft—the youngest by a few months. Neither of these shortcomings seemed to deter her as she took her turn on a beam low to the ground.

Without a spot from the instructor, she mounted the beam, climbing first onto her knees and then standing tall on her feet. Lifting her arms out at her sides and grabbing the hand of the instructor for balance, she teetered across the four-inch-wide apparatus, bending her knee and curling her toes to the opposite leg's ankle bone after each cautious step.

"I did not know she could do that!" Ziva exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief.

Tony chuckled. "Just wait until they get to the bars. She swings and hangs upside-down. And see the trampoline in the back? The coach can't get them off of it!"

From below, the unmistakably distinct sound of Hannah crying suddenly rose up to the loft. Their synchronized glances over the banister brought her into view. Their daughter sat stunned beside the low beam that she'd been walking across just seconds before, her face scrunched up and red, tears rolling over pudgy cheeks.

Readying his cane, Tony aimed to stand up but was detained by Ziva's hand on his shoulder.

"Where are you going? You said we were not allowed on the gym floor."

"When the kids fall, the coach kinda expects you to calm them down again, so..."

That was all the permission Ziva needed. "Allow me." Leaping onto her feet, she walked only a few steps before spinning back around. "And you are sure this will not be considered _interfering_?"

"Touché," Tony conceded with a smile. "Go. She's waiting for her Mama."

Her fleet stride delivered her to the other side of the loft in a literal blink of an eye, and once she disappeared down the stairs, he tracked her movements over the railing as she beckoned Hannah to meet her just off the mats.

Ziva's smartphone trilled from her recently vacated seat beside him, alerting that a text had been received. Her phone was password protected, but she must have left it unlocked because the text popped up in plain view on the screen.

Tony casually peeked at the message, and seeing it was from McGee, their old teammate and the current NCIS Director, kept reading…

_Got a lead. Need you at ops._

Another trill announced the arrival of a new text.

_Now._

"Hey, McBossyBoots," Tony muttered under his breath, "that's my wife you're talking to."

Was it too much to ask for her to have one night off? He barely saw her as it was; their daughter just expected her to be absent, questioning not when her mother left but when she was actually around. Now, after fifteen minutes of "quality family time," they were about to lose her again.

A quick look below informed him that Ziva had worked her magic with Hannah, leading the now tear-free girl by the hand back to the class.

His eyes flicked to her cell again. It was unlikely that whatever was going down couldn't be handled without her. A few more hours away from the office couldn't make _that_ big of a difference…could it?

And before he had fully made up his mind, his deft fingers closed the message screen and pressed the button on top of the phone, effectively switching it off.


	2. Chapter 2

******A/N: **Thanks to those who reviewed for the last chapter! Know that your words were appreciated by me. Here's the conclusion - enjoy! :))

**2/2**

His attempts were usually harmless. Sidetracking her from packing a suitcase by pulling her down onto their bed with him and kissing her to the point of distraction, or taking 'detours' to the airport, resulting in a missed flight and a few hours more with her while she waited on standby. The ploys to win additional slices of Ziva's highly-in-demand time were inconvenient, maybe, but futile. After indulging in his affection, she always resumed filling the pockets of her overnight bag and she always got on the next plane, departing for destinations all across the country.

This attempt was no different, Tony told himself. Whether she read the text messages now or later, eventually she would leave him again.

Once Ziva had comforted Hannah and returned to the loft, he wouldn't go so far as to say he prevented her from checking her phone, but he did help himself to the small pleasures that accompanied having her in person—talking to her, holding her hand, looking her in the eye, as opposed to strictly hearing her voice through the pin-sized speaker on his phone. And if that happened to captivate her attention, then it—

"There you are, Ziva." The familiar voice expelled the words on the wave of an exasperated sigh.

Tony needn't spare a look to prove the identity of the visitor. He'd recognize that Probie whine anywhere. "Friend of yours?" he mimicked.

Striding toward them through the loft, all the more out of place amidst the sea of parents due to his oversized, midnight black trench coat and grimace, was Director McGee. His expression didn't alter when he set eyes on his missing agent.

In contrast to her husband, Ziva was astonished to see her boss at her daughter's gymnastics center. "What could he want?" She reached for her phone on the bleacher.

"Okay, here's the thing," Tony began.

From years of interrogating criminals, he knew that it was better to cop to a crime right away than to have evidence laid out to incriminate you _and then_ confess to it. It was a subtle distinction that made all the difference when it came to the severity of the inevitable punishment. But Tony didn't get the chance to explain his actions as McGee approached them.

Ziva rose to her feet. "Director, what are you doing here?"

"You're needed at ops," he said cryptically, glancing around at all the civilians. "Didn't you get my texts?"

Puzzlement clouded her dark eyes. She tapped a finger on her phone, but the screen remained black. "It was on when I left the airfield."

"When you didn't reply, I tried Tony's phone," McGee continued. "But it was off, too, which meant I couldn't have either of you ping'd. I finally had to call your babysitter who told me where you were."

"Stop or people might think you're some kind of investigator." Chuckling hollowly, Tony got to his feet with aid of his cane. He kept one eye on her efforts to pull up the texts in question while clapping a hand on McGee's shoulder. "Must be some heck of a break in the case if you came all the way out to collect her yourself, huh?"

"Actually, I was in the…" The director furrowed his brow. "Wait. How did you know we got a lead?"

"Because he read the texts." Ziva spun around, meeting her husband's waiting gaze with conviction. "When I went to help Hannah, you saw them come in and turned off my phone so that I would not."

Tony knew it would only take the application of her honed investigative skills to piece time and opportunity together to produce the most likely suspect. He just underestimated how practiced his wife was at her job. The next logical question, of course, was motive.

"Why, Tony?"

By now, the entire occupancy of the loft was tuned-in to their unfolding personal melodrama. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Kylin taking in the spectacle with her eyebrows raised halfway up her forehead.

Tony cleared his throat and took a step toward the stairs. "Could we maybe move this conversation downstairs?"

"Yeah, um, guys?" McGee glanced awkwardly between his friends. "Sorry, but we need to go, Ziva."

Her disappointed gaze switched back to Tony. "We will talk about this later. Tell Hannah I…" A heartbeat of hesitation. Emotion was a noticeable chink in her voice as she continued. "Tell her whatever it is you tell her when I leave." Not waiting for a confirmation, she stalked out of the loft, McGee trailing in her wake.

Loose ends stretched out in the gap widening between Tony and his retreating wife. Hannah's class would soon be over, and she would need her Dad to be there for her. So he stayed behind, as usual.

Family time was officially over.

/-/-/-/-/

Ziva DiNozzo was good at keeping her personal and professional lives from touching, but Special Agent David was a pro. When she and Tony got married, she retained her maiden name for work; it was less confusing when they were on the same team. Though she and her husband were no longer teammates, it was still convenient, in so far as it made clear the distinction between job and family, a line her own father never thought to draw, and it was to his downfall in the end. She would not repeat his mistake.

But the events of the past few hours were upsetting the precarious balance just enough to cause her trepidation in every facets of her life. Flipping through the file in her lap, she paused to pinch the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes for a second…and then another. Of course that was when her boss waltzed into MTAC.

"What do we have?" McGee plopped down in the seat beside her, staring up at the screen that stretched across the wall opposite them.

Honestly, she did not know. Jetlag coupled with—no, she was not going to think about that now. _Focus_, she told herself. _Try. _And so she summarized for him what her team had, which was not as significant a breakthrough as he had portrayed it to be in his messages.

"We are still missing something," she concluded.

"The piece that will leave him vulnerable." McGee nodded in agreement.

Rarely did a case drag on this long. A month into tracking Ze'ev's nonexistent digital footprint, putting their ears to the ground and listening for any movement, and calling in favor after favor had put them no closer to finding him than when they first started.

For all intents and purposes, the man who hailed from her homeland was the equivalent of a high school science geek mixing mystery chemicals in his makeshift basement lab. The problem was that he'd gotten his hands on far more dangerous materials and was using military bases around the world as his guinea pig, experimenting all sorts of terrible biological concoctions on them, which made him a terrorist, and why? That was what they still did not know.

Ziva slapped the folder shut. It was to no advantage rereading what she already knew verbatim. "He is invisible, hidden, literally a wolf in sheep's clothing," she ranted.

McGee cracked a smile. "Got that one right."

"I had help." She tilted her chin toward the consult where half of her team worked diligently on the computers; the other half was downstairs quadruple checking everything.

The shift of his body toward her, with his back angled to the other agents and techs in the darkened room, was her first clue that the business side of the conversation was over. His sheepish expression was the clincher.

"Look, Ziva, I didn't mean to start a fight between you and Tony. I had no idea that he would—"

She halted his words with a 'stop' gesture of her open palm. "It is not your fault, Director. Do not apologize for him."

"I'm sure he was just worried about you."

That was not a reason. It was an excuse. Ziva was not interested in either.

McGee added, "And he's probably thinking of Hannah, too, so…"

To end his continued rambling, she took a liberty with the director that she typically did not allow herself in the presence of her team—that of a friend and past teammate—by placing both of her hands over his on the armrest between them.

None of her current team members had spouses, let alone a child, or even productive social lives outside of their work. They led an existence free of attachments that she knew intimately from her days as an officer of Mossad, and even from her first year as a liaison to NCIS. Every time they were reminded that she had people waiting for her to come home, it altered the way they followed her commands and how they relied on her in the field. The last thing she needed was the boss blatantly favoring her in response to her family drama.

Seeking out his eyes, she tethered him further with a firm stare. "I appreciate your concern, Tim, but I will deal with this myself."

McGee gave her a closed-lipped smile and patted her arm like the big brother he all but biologically was to her. "If you say so, Ziva, but I'm here. If you need me."

Her certainty that she would not—need his help with this issue, that is—failed to dampen the sentiment of his offer, and she reciprocated with a smile of her own.

Interrupting their moment was a sudden and rapid banging echoing off the outer metal door separating MTAC from the NCIS office.

"I want eyes," McGee barked, jumping out of his seat and back into his director skin.

Before the live feed from the outer camera was pulled up, Ziva was through the first door. The incessant knocking boomed dully, like wood on metal, and was interspersed by what sounded like—

No. It couldn't be.

She grabbed the handle and twisted it down, swinging open the final door—

A blur zipped in front of her eyes. Her hand flashed out and closed around the projectile, narrowly preventing it from colliding with her jaw.

"Hi, Mama!"

Before her stood Hannah, a familiar cane clutched between her small hands. The sing-song shouts of "Ma-ma, Ma-ma" along with the thudding on the door _had_ been her daughter, just as she'd suspected. The little gymnast grinned, unaware of the ruckus she'd caused.

"Told you we'd find Mama, Hannah-Bear."

Tony stood leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. There was once a time when his presence in the office was nothing out of the ordinary, but now she had to brush off the rush of déjà vu raising goose bumps on her arms.

"Give Daddy his cane back. That's a good girl," he praised when she yanked it from Ziva's grip and delivered it to him.

Someone walked up behind her. "Oh, it's just you."

"That's real friendly, McGoo," Tony snarked.

McGee called back into MTAC, "Cancel security!"

Turning on her heel, Ziva addressed her superior. "I will handle this."

"Take your time," the Director told her, glancing at Tony over her shoulder. "And good luck."

/-/-/-/-/

Once the DiNozzos were alone outside of MTAC, Ziva sank to one knee and pulled Hannah into her arms, nuzzling her nose into the little girl's neck. Their smiles, directed brightly at each other, were mirror images of perfect sideways slices of a crescent moon.

Ziva's smile disappeared when she shifted her focus onto him. "Why are you here?"

It was a fair question. Tony _was_ on her turf, way past normal work hours, and with their three-and-a-half-year-old in tow. But the answer wasn't so simple. The wise choice would have been to deal with this later, after they'd both had time to cool off. Something had propelled him, though, to depart the gym and drive first to his work to pick up the file that'd been on his desk all week, and then on to NCIS.

"Tony, why are you here?" she repeated.

"For you. Why else?" Instead of earning him some leniency, his entreat, voiced barely above a whisper, only led to her dismissing him.

"I do not have time for this. I am working." Ziva scooped up the small bundle of soft limbs and marched toward the elevator. "And you need to leave."

"Don't you think I know that?" He dropped his head back, the white ceiling briefly coming into view, before following her. "I want to help."

"Help me," she said, pushing the button on the panel next to the elevator, "by taking her home."

"Or I could give you this." Tony hobbled forward, finally catching up with her in front of the silver doors. Between them, he raised a beige file folder, the red markings around the edge indicating contents of a classified nature. Clutched in the same hand was a half-empty carton of French fries.

"Ooo, my fry-fries! Daddy, give me them." Hannah made grabby gestures for the salty snack with her chubby fingers.

Tony kept his eyes glued to Ziva's determined expression as another step brought the space between them to a sliver, close enough for Hannah to reach inside the carton and fish out a golden fry that she promptly stuck in her mouth, noshing on it happily. She was an easy child to please.

Referring to the file, he elaborated, "It's intel on Ze'ev that you might find useful. Turns out his sister was a casualty of a Marine training exercise along the Gaza Strip two years ago."

"Which gives his attacks against our bases," she tagged on seamlessly, "a motive of revenge."

Their gazes locked, and Tony could feel the history rush up, enveloping them in the memory of partnership. He chanced a smile, as worn-in as their ability to work together, whether it was in this building or outside of it.

"What we won't do for family, huh?"

The agent looked down at the folder, but didn't accept it. "Is this your way of apologizing for embarrassing me earlier?"

"It's because I can."

"Tony." Ziva sighed, adjusting in her arms the little girl still munching on fries. "This is the problem. There are boundaries. I keep you and Hannah away from my job for no other reason than your own safety. And were you not the one who was going on about interfering?"

"You were happy," Tony explained, guileless. "With Hannah. With me." His shrug was faint, more of an involuntary movement of his shoulder blades. "I just wanted to give you a little bit more of that."

"Mama?" Hannah interrupted, softly patting her mother's cheeks with her small palms to garner her attention.

Tony didn't hear her request or the reply from Ziva. The full range of his senses was attuned to the cherishable moment of normalcy between his wife and daughter. His girls.

Ziva brushed a loose strand of the Hannah's downy hair behind her ear. She swayed gently, imperceptibly, from side to side, soothing the child whose bedtime was fast approaching. He almost missed it when she began speaking to him, for her words were intermingled with a heavy exhale.

"Do you not see how hard it is for me? To go back and forth like this," she clarified at the behest of his perplexed expression. "You and Hannah have this…whole world that I am not a part of. I do not know the people you talk to or how things work, and every time I come home, something else has changed."

"That's becau—"

Soft fingertips on his lips silenced him. Her touch was cool, and it made him ache for her. Like all married couples, they had their fair share of fights, but for the past year, more often than not, when they came to blows, it was over this old argument of work vs. family. It was a circular path they tread, going around and around but never finding a way out.

Ziva clung to his gaze, waiting until she was sure he was listening to continue. "Sometimes, I think that perhaps…_I _am the one who is interfering in _your_ life."

Tony absorbed her confession. Even if it was the furthest thing from the truth, he was nevertheless glad for the insight. What to do about it was another matter. Good thing he already had something in mind.

"I guess we'll just have to invoke Rule #16."

A squint conveyed her confusion. "I do not know that—"

"You wouldn't, because I came up with it on the car ride over. I thought I'd skip the text update this time." Rose tinted his cheeks; a sheepish smile tugged at his lips. "It's a simple one anyway: 'There is a right and a wrong time to interfere. Know the difference.'"

Ziva took in the words. "It is good advice," she approved.

"The thing is," he said, moving closer. "I gave life without you a shot once and let me tell you, sweetheart, it wasn't pretty. So you're stuck with me. _Us_." A playful poke to Hannah's tummy elicited a giggle and a shriek.

His admission evoked a different reaction from Ziva, whose melancholy smile he considered a step in the right direction. And he closed the remaining distance for her, enclosing his wife (and the little one in her arms, by default) into his embrace.

"You're squishing me, Daddy!" Hannah complained, pushing uselessly at his chest.

The parents shared a chuckle over their daughter's head—and then exchanged a look meant just for each other.

"We'll figure this out," Tony promised. "Together."

Ziva nodded in agreement. "I know."

There was a solution to this ongoing argument, but she'd already made it clear that she wasn't interested in resigning from her team. He didn't blame her. If not for his injury, he would still be in the field alongside her. They'd just have to make their own detour in the path instead.

With a familiar _ding_, the elevator doors parted. Hannah wasted no time wrestling out of her mother's arms to trot into the contraption, clutching the half-empty container of fries to her chest.

"Come on, Daddy. Let's go home." She swatted sleepily at her eye with a balled fist.

"Hey, who's the boss here, munchkin?" Obeying all the same, Tony climbed into the elevator, but not before handing off the folder to Ziva. "We'll see you soon, ok?"

Holding the automatic door back with one arm, Ziva followed him halfway into the box. "Very soon," she agreed, depositing a quick but generous kiss on his surprised mouth. "Thanks to you."

"Anytime," he replied, sensing that he was forgiven and further, that they would be all right. They always were, eventually.

He was even thinking of writing a rule about it…

**The end**


End file.
